Review: A Constellation of Minor Bears

Title: A Constellation of Minor Bears
Author: Jen Ferguson
Heartdrum, 2024

Jen Ferguson is a Michif/Métis Canadian activist, feminist, scholar, and author of young adult fiction. Her previous novels include The Summer of Bitter and Sweet and Those Pink Mountains.

Molly (white/Métis), Traylor (Métis), and Hank (white) are each centered in alternating chapters in A Constellation of Minor Bears. The book began with Molly graduating high school, but the story begins with Hank’s accident. Or, was it when Molly, Traylor, and Hank became friends, then family? The story isn’t complicated, but it is complex. Aren’t families always complex? Aren’t people in families all shapes, sizes, and gender orientations?

These three teens know each other so well! In Constellation they are each facing situations and decisions that are difficult for them individually and impossible collectively.

So, Jen Ferguson takes our young heroes on a nice long hike. They’d always been planning this hike, but after Hank’s accident things changed between them. Yet, there they were, together but alone. The Pacific Crest Trail is brutal enough but, when your emotional state is in turmoil and you’re feeling that the people you should be able to depend on the most have let you down, well is there any other way other than through it?

I’m really trying to not give it all away! This is neither a thriller nor an adventure story in the strictest sense, but readers make little discoveries along that way that reveal the depth of our teens’ connections. It is truly a satisfactory and enjoyable book.

Ferguson created a world where her Indigenous teens have more agency than we typically expect in YA literature. They are well equipped with tools and knowledge on this hike they’re taking. It seems years of experience has prepared them well. They can maneuver in the white adult world and have connections to help them when needed. I liked seeing Indigenous teens with a level of privilege. I also appreciated that most of their knowledge about hiking and caring for the land came from hiking classes, they didn’t have mystical ties to the land in ways we always expect in published Indigenous books. But, they did maintain a respect and reverence for nature that came from both their tribal connections and training.

The liberatory work that Molly, Hank and Traylor needed to do was internal. These teens knew how to take care of themselves out there on the trail, but they didn’t know how to tend to their own internal healing. They needed each other for that.

At the most fundamental level, I will still want exactly what I wanted back then.

Hank and Molly as my best friends. Eventually, Mollycakes as my person. I’m not in a rush. I’m good at patience. We have time for slow. For our minor disagreements, for making up. For university degrees. At the wedding, Hank will be both bridesman and best man. The deep freeze will always be full enough to share with neighbors. The house big enough to welcome those who need it, but small enough to hold them tightly. And everyone is learning how to skate, even if all they ever want to do is have fun out there.

But that big dream, it all hinges on one massive thing,

If Molly can forgive me. (pp 57-8)

Do keep reading Indigenous books beyond November! Keep them in you TBR pile!

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